DENVER (CBS4) – Hundreds of Colorado veterans waited in a long line in Denver on Saturday for free cannabis products.

The free handouts were set up as a sign of protest to a decision by the state’s health board not to allow post-traumatic-stress disorder as a treatable condition for medical marijuana.

The cannabis giveaway was set up by Grow4Vets founder Roger Martin and Todd Mitchem, CEO of a company called High There! — a sort of social networking tool for pot users.

“We teamed up to get medicial marijuana into the hands of those they say need it most,” Mitchem told CBS4. “You see and hear their stories, you see the way they operate with cannabis versus prescription meds, and it’s a pretty clear picture. I think to deny it because we don’t have research, is really short-sighted.”

“We’re tired of waiting around for the government to do something to help veterans,” Martin said. “We’re losing over 50 American heroes every single day as a result of prescription drug overdose or suicide, and the VA’s position up until this point has pretty much been let’s just keep them in a drug stupor.”

The New York State Department of Health (DOH) announced the following five companies would be awarded one of the coveted licenses to grow and dispense medical marijuana in New York: PharmaCann LLC, Empire State Health Solutions LLC, Columbia Care NY LLC, Etain, LLC, Bloomfield Industries Inc. The announcement came after a competitive bidding process through which forty-three industry groups contended for the five licenses. Each producer is restricted to opening only four dispensaries each, they will only be allowed to produce five strains or brands of medical marijuana, and all products must be in pill, oil or tincture form. The price of the medicine will be set by the Commissioner of Health.

DOH has said that New York’s medical marijuana program will be fully operational by January 2016. Before the program can become operational, the state must also create a system for registering doctors and patients. Since July 2014, advocates have been fighting for an emergency access program to get medicine to the critically ill sooner than the January 2016 deadline. But despite a year of advocacy and passing an emergency access bill in both the Senate and Assembly, to date, not one patient in New York has received medical marijuana.

DOH has said that New York’s medical marijuana program will be fully operational by January 2016. Before the program can become operational, the state must also create a system for registering doctors and patients. Since July 2014, advocates have been fighting for an emergency access program to get medicine to the critically ill sooner than the January 2016 deadline. But despite a year of advocacy and passing an emergency access bill in both the Senate and Assembly, to date, not one patient in New York has received medical marijuana.

The war on drugs is over, and weed won? D.A.R.E., the organization designed to plant a deep-seated fear of drugs in the minds of every late-20th-century middle schooler, published an op-ed calling for marijuana legalization (which they now say was published by mistake, see the update at the bottom of this post).

Written by former deputy sheriff Carlis McDerment in response to a letter in the Columbus Dispatch, the op-ed explains that it's impossible for law enforcement to control the sale of marijuana to minors. "People like me, and other advocates of marijuana legalization, are not totally blind to the harms that drugs pose to children," McDerment writes. "We just happen to know that legalizing and regulating marijuana will actually make everyone safer."